Harvesting The Fruits of Contemplation

(Image source: Wikimedia Commons)   Sometimes we fail to see the obvious - the Truth that is right in front of our eyes.  It is painful to our Lord when it is He we do not see. Has this has happened to you? If so, you will appreciate this little story. Listen here.

Pondering Tidbits of Truth is my simple and inadequate way of providing nuggets of spiritual wisdom for you to chew on from time to time. Blessed Pop e Paul VI "The dialogue of salvation is not based on the personal merits of those with whom it is carried out or on the results that may or may not come about. Our Lord teaches: 'It is not the healthy who need a physician...' The dialogue concerning salvation is open to everyone without distinction. Similarly, our own conversations should be potentially universal and capable of embracing all." (From Encyclical, Ecclesiam suam )  C.S. Lewis "Enemy-occupied territory - that is what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage."  (From Mere Christianity )  Father Federico Suarez "Silence is an indispensable condition for keeping things and pon...

Another Wednesday and another opportunity to thank Allison Gingras and Elizabeth Riordan for their weekly invitation to re-post our favorite posts on Worth Revisiting. Go there now (and every Wednesday) and let an interesting group of Catholic bloggers nourish you in your Faith journey. V isit Allison at   Reconciled To You and Elizabeth at Theology Is A Verb during the rest of each week.   You will enjoy your visit. Here is my contribution: Time To Ask A Difficult But Necessary Question (Originally published on May 3, 2015) For too long there has been a hesitancy, if not a fear, to ask difficult but necessary questions. What follows is certainly one of them. Would our Church and world look substantially different today had all our priests followed this shepherd's example?  It is never too late to begin! Pray for all our shepherds.

(Photo©Michael Seagriff) “Go to our Lord just as you are. Make a simple meditation. Exhaust your own fund of piety and love before you make use of books. Love the inexhaustible book of humility and charity. However, it is well to take with you a pious book, in order to recall your thoughts when your mind wanders or when your senses are dull. Remember that our good Master prefers the poverty of our heart to the most sublime thoughts and affections borrowed from others. Understand well that our Lord desires our own heart, and not that of others. He wants the thought and the prayer of your heart as a natural expression of love for him. To be unwilling to go to our Lord with one's misery and one's humiliating poverty, is often the fruit of subtle self-love, of restlessness or tepidity, and yet that misery and poverty are what our Lord prefers to every other gift. He loves it. He blesses it. Glorify the grace of God, without which you can do nothing. Open...

(Photo©Michael Seagriff) On the first night of a recent pilgrimage to several Canadian Marian Shrines, the homilist at the evening Mass recommended to all those who desired to become holy and to spend eternity in God’s Presence to begin each day as follows: Begin each day as if, upon awakening, God told you this would be your last day on earth and that He would come to get you at midnight.  Welcome that news. Then live your life that day as if was in fact the last day of your earthly life – forgive, love and repent. Do this exercise every day for at least two weeks, Father suggested, and you will become holier and closer to God. Willing to give it a shot?